Refinishing Bedroom Furniture- Total Cost $25

When I first got my bedroom set it was cherry wood. A gorgeous red-brown color. The bed frame broke after several cross country moves ("yah" for being military lol). Christmas brought me a new canopy bed which I absolutely love. The only problem- its black and the rest of the existing furniture is cherry.

So I decided to refinish my bedroom set. With no previous knowledge or experience. I'm very happy with the results, though not professional, its better than it was!

Supplies
3m sandpaper $2
Bonding coat/paint $10
Wood oil-based paint $10
Paintbrushes $3

Step One- Sand the dresser. You can use a cheap green 3m sand-pad such as that found on the back of dish cleaning sponge, they sell it at Lowe's minus the sponge part.

Step Two- Apply a coat of bonding agent. This coat is white and ensures that the oil based paint coat will adhere to the dresser properly.

 

Step Three- Paint on your oil based paint. I went with black and only painted on one coat because I had 2 dressers and 2 nightstands to do and only had so much motivation. Im sure the paint would have looked much more uniform with less perfections if I did a second coat.

Tips- Make sure you paint the sides and top of the drawer about 1/2 inch inwards in case any gaps by the drawers try to show the previous color even while the drawers are shut.

Don't use natural bristle brushes, the bristles fall out slowly and its extremely hard to get them out of the drying paint. Try to use a foam one instead. I was warned against using a foam brush because oil paint may break it apart but I found it worked much better than the more expensive brush.

As you can see, I have yet to take a good picture of the final product. Its black now and matches the bed :) Eventually I'm going to get new drawer pulls/knobs and replace those old ones. 'hoping I can find teal knobs to match the teal and black theme of my bedroom!